SI in New Member States

Background

Accounting for path dependency and context specificity, it becomes evdident that social innovations
are driven by history, socio-economic and social context reflected in structures, behaviours and institutions.
In this sense New Member States (NMS) of the EU differ from the Old Member States (OMS) in that they have experienced
different overall economic system up to about couple of decades before their joining the EU,
the effects of which are still sensible. For instance, the welfare regimes in the NMS are, in most
cases, not easily comparable to the models in the OMS.

Objectives

Against this backdrop, the overall goal is to identify the specifics of social innovation in the New Member
States with special regard to transition countries (EU-10) to allow for the elaboration of adequate public
policies instruments, business models and indicators.

Methodology

Tacking stock of former research undertaken by CIS, three groups of countries will be distinguished:
South Eastern countries (Bulgaria, Romania), Central European countries (Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland)
and Baltic states. Common characteristics and diversities related to the economic opportunities
and motivations for social innovations, their roots and future implications, especially as compared with the
EU-15 countries, will be identified. More specifically, the role of innovation transfer, types of innovation,
implementation conditions plus the social and economic impacts of innovation activities will be studied.

Besides, the relations of social innovativeness to (overall or non-social) innovation capacity and institutional
quality will be analysed, and, consequently, the key factors identified which make the concept of social innovation
and their policy stimulation in EU-10 specific. The analysis will be based on

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questionnaires for authorities,

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expert panels for mapping of bottom-up activities, and

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desk research for state-of-art knowledge especially in academic and policy making areas.